“Stop the—”
The current tore through Victor, bright and blinding. His fingers clutched at the sides of the table, muscles screaming as the first wave crashed over him. Behind his eyes, he saw Angie, standing beside the electric panel.
“I want you to know,” she said as she began to fix sensors to his chest, “that I will never, ever forgive you for this.”
Alarms wailed.
The scanner whined, shuddered, stopped.
Porter was somewhere on the other side of the machine, speaking in a low, urgent voice. The table began to withdraw. Victor clawed at the straps holding his head. Felt them come free. He had to get up. He had to—
The current crashed into him again, so hard the room shattered into fragments—blood in his mouth, his heart losing rhythm, Porter, a pen light turning the world white, a stifled scream—then the pain erased everything.
* * *
VICTOR woke on the exam table.
The lights on the MRI were dark, the opening threaded with scorch marks. He sat up, head spinning, as the world came back into focus. Porter lay several feet away, his body contorted, as if trapped in a spasm. Victor didn’t need to feel for a pulse, or sense the man’s empty nerves, to know that he was dead.
A memory, of another time, another lab, Angie’s body, twisted in the same unnatural way.
Shit.
Victor got to his feet, surveying the room. The corpse. The damage.
Now that his senses had settled, he felt calm, clear-headed again. It was like the break after a storm. A stretch of peace before bad weather built again. It was only a matter of time—which was why every silent second mattered.
There was a syringe on the floor next to Porter’s hand, still capped. Victor slipped it into his pocket and went into the hall, where he’d left his coat. He drew out his cell as the text came in from Dominic.
1 minute, 32 seconds.
Victor took a steadying breath and looked around the empty offices.
He retraced his steps to the exam room, gathered up every scan and printout from Porter’s tests. In the doctor’s office, he cleared the appointment, the digital data, tore off the sheet on which the doctor had made his notes, and the one beneath it for safe measure, systematically erased every sign that he’d ever been inside the building.
Every sign aside from the dead body.
There was nothing to be done about that, short of setting fire to the place—an option he considered, and then set aside. Fires were temperamental things, unpredictable. Better to leave this looking as it did—a heart attack, a freak accident.
Victor slipped on his coat and left.
Back at the hotel suite, Sydney and Mitch were sprawled on the sofa, watching an old movie, Dol stretched at their feet. Mitch met Victor’s gaze when he walked in, eyebrows raised in question, and Victor gave a small, almost imperceptible head shake.
Sydney rolled upright. “Where were you?”
“Stretching my legs,” said Victor.
Syd frowned. Over the last few weeks, the look in her eyes had shifted from pure worry to something more skeptical. “You’ve been gone for hours.”
“And I was trapped for years,” countered Victor, pouring himself a drink. “It makes a body restless.”
“I get restless too,” said Sydney. “That’s why Mitch came up with the card game.” She turned to Mitch. “Why doesn’t Victor have to play?”
Victor raised a brow and sipped his drink. “How does it work?”
Sydney took the deck up from the table. “If you draw a number card, you have to stay in and learn something, but if you draw a face card, you get to go out. Mostly just to parks or movies, but it’s still better than being cooped up.”
Victor cut a glance at Mitch, but the man only shrugged and rose, heading to the bathroom.
“You try it,” said Syd, holding out the deck. Victor considered her a moment, then lifted his hand. But instead of drawing a card, he brushed the deck from Syd’s palm, spilling cards across the floor.
“Hey,” said Syd as Victor knelt and considered his options. “That’s cheating.”
“You never said I had to play fair.” He plucked the king of spades from where it lay, upturned. “Here,” he said, offering her the card. “Keep it up your sleeve.”
Sydney considered the card for a long moment, and then palmed it right before Mitch returned. His eyes flicked between them. “What’s going on here?”
“Nothing,” said Syd without a second’s hesitation. “Victor’s just teasing me.”
It was disconcerting how easily she lied.
Syd returned to the couch, Dol climbing up beside her, and Victor stepped out onto the balcony.
A few minutes later, the door slid open at his back, and Mitch joined him.
“Well?” asked Mitch. “What did Porter say?”
“He didn’t have answers,” said Victor.
“Then we find someone else,” said Mitch.
Victor nodded. “Tell Syd we’re leaving in the morning.” Mitch slipped back inside, and Victor set his drink on the railing. He drew the syringe from his pocket, reading the label. Lorazepam. An anti-seizure drug. He had been hoping for a diagnosis, a cure, but until then, he would find a way to treat the symptoms.
* * *
“I don’t normally meet with patients after hours.”
Victor sat across the table from the young doctor. She was slim, and dark, eyes keen behind her glasses. But no matter her interest, or suspicion, her practice was located in Capstone, a city with strong government ties, the kind of place where privacy was paramount, discretion mandatory. Where loose lips could end careers, even lives.
Victor slid the cash across the table. “Thank you for making an exception.”
She took the money and considered the few lines he’d filled out on his intake. “How can I help you, Mr. . . . Lassiter?”
Victor was trying to focus through the rising sound in his skull, as she asked all the same questions, and he gave all the same answers. He laid out the symptoms—the noise, the pain, the convulsions, the blackouts—omitting what he could, lying where he had to. The doctor listened, pen scratching across her notepad as she thought. “It could be epilepsy, myasthenia gravis, dystonia—neurological disorders are hard to diagnose sometimes, when they present overlapping symptoms. I’ll order some tests—”
“No,” said Victor.
She looked up from her notes. “Without knowing what exactly—”
“I’ve had tests,” he said. “They were . . . inconclusive. I’m here because I want to know what you would prescribe.”
Dr. Clayton straightened in her chair. “I don’t prescribe medications without a diagnosis, and I don’t diagnose without compelling evidence. No offense, Mr. Lassiter, but your word is not sufficient.”
Victor exhaled. He leaned forward. And as he did, he leaned on her, too. Not with his hands, but with his senses, a pressure just below pain. A subtle discomfort, the same kind that made strangers bend away, allowed Victor to pass unnoticed through a crowd. But Clayton couldn’t escape so easily, and so the discomfort registered for what it was—a threat. A fight-or-flight trigger, simple and animalistic, predator to prey.
“There are plenty of dirty doctors in this city,” said Victor. “But their willingness to prescribe is often inversely proportional to their skill as a physician. Which is why I’m here. With you.”